Storage platforms increasingly are providing an improved ability to organize, search, and share all types of data in a computer system. These storage platforms extend and broaden the data platform beyond traditional file systems and database systems, and are designed to be the store for all types of data. One example of such a storage platform is Microsoft Windows® Future Storage or Microsoft Windows® File System (WinFS). Data stored within such a storage platform is often shared, replicated, and stored in different physical and logical locations among many users, individuals and applications and thus may require a certain level of synchronization for the data to appear consistent.
WinFS Synchronization (WinFS Sync), described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/692,508, filed Oct. 24, 2003, entitled “Systems and Methods for Providing Relational and Hierarchical Synchronization Services for Units of Information Manageable by a Hardware/Software Interface System,” and other synchronization solutions for hierarchical stores define synchronization scopes (the data to be synchronized) to be portions of the hierarchy (e.g. a folder tree). Many scenarios exist in which such synchronization scopes are inadequate. For example, this may be the case where moving an item into a folder in order to make it sync is too much of a burden, or where an item must be in two independent synchronization scopes. A common example is wanting to share a picture with someone, without moving this picture out of the folder it is in. However, supporting non-hierarchical sync scopes in hierarchical stores (such as WinFS or most file systems) in a multi-master environment is very difficult.
Thus, needed are processes and a system that addresses the shortcomings of the prior art.